Next Stop....Japan

As some of you may know Jesse and I were planning on heading back to the States so Jesse could attend seminary this January. That idea was brought on by the potential scholarship available to Jesse through his dad's work. To make a long story short, Jesse is no longer eligible for the scholarship. This was disappointing news but it seems God has a different plan for us.
Shortly after the door closed (temporarily) on Seminary, Jesse received a random email from a lady at his parent's church in Japan. She was asking if we knew anyone who could go be missionaries at a Church in Japan, who was in desperate need of English teachers. (English lessons is a great tool for the church to build relationships with others in the community) It didn't take long before we started seriously considering ourselves for this position.
There were so many things for us to consider in the decision. Here is a glimpse of our process.

• The pastor of the church only speaks Japanese, so the teacher/s would have to know Japanese. This isn't that common and Jesse is fluent.
• We kind of want to have some clue about where we might "settle down" before we have kids. Japan is an option so I would like to see what it's like to live there before we test it out with a family.
  
• We feel that we're only serving ourselves here in Korea. Serving God and people is very important to us and we don't feel like we are doing either here. Both Jesse and I studied "helping" fields (Psychology and Human Services) at university because we knew that our professions had to be that which served others. I admire people that can serve others and God regardless of where they work or what their job is. For us it needs to be obvious or week after week goes by and we realize we are living solely for ourselves.
  
• The position primarily involves teaching English classes but we are given a lot of freedom to build community using our gifts and interests. Jesse is thinking of maybe teaching music or voice or developing himself personally as a musician. I can teach art classes or start an art club. One suggestion was a cooking class, neither of us really cook but we could learn along with them.
• We will be close to Jesse's family (around an hour away), which for Jesse has been 6 1/2 years since he lived in on the same side of the globe.
  

At this point we are planning on starting in December. We still have to figure out the visa situation but we are confident this is where we are supposed to go so something will work out.

A few of my favorite things

I keep meaning to share about the everyday details that make up our experience but to be honest they aren't that interesting. We wake up we eat breakfast (usually cereal) we walk to school. We teach kindergarten in the morning. We usually eat lunch with the kids sometimes we go out. We teach elementary school in the afternoon. By 7pm we're exhausted, we get some food, usually at a restaurant then head home to watch a movie or just chill. Most weekends are spent hanging out with friends who like us are teaching here in Korea.

One pastime worth mentioning is the Jimjalbongs (sauna and bath houses). I love these. These bath houses are everywhere in Korea. We have discovered at least 4 in a 15 min walking radius from our apartment. Although they all vary is size and appearance they are all very much the same.
When you go to these establishments first you take of your shoes and place them in a free locker. Then you change into these "uniforms" an oversize t-shirt and shorts provided for you. When you enter the main communal area you will usually see people sprawled out on mats watch TV. You will also notice several smaller doors all along the perimeter walls. These doors lead into different types of saunas including, a salt room where the ground is covered in large chunks of salt similar to sand; a charcoal room where the walls are covered with charcoal; "the human oven" which I call it which is usually a smaller room that is so unbearably hot you can only crawl in stay for a few moments and crawl out. To balance your experience there is also a cold room complete with a snowman. I don't really like the cold room, by the time I'm out of the sauna and walked to the cold room I'm already cold enough to head back into the warm one. These facilities usually have a workout gym, Internet cafe, arcade room and more. Families will come to these places and spend the whole day.
When you are finished in the communal area or just tired of wearing your sweaty pajamas you can go to the gender segregated baths. (I can only report about the women's side, things may be different on the men's) As you enter you will notice several rows of women seated in front of a shower scrubbing themselves with rough clothes. They attempt to remove all dead skin cells from their body before entering the baths. You can even pay someone to scrub you, similar to getting a massage. When you are completely clean you wrap your hair up in a towel and may enter the baths. Similar to the saunas there are many different baths of varying temperature and type. Some of them have herbs or minerals added. There is usually at least one jet bath and one absolutely freezing bath. Unlike the cold room, I love the cold bath - going from the super hot bath to the freezing bath is such a great feeling. That just about sums up the jimjalbongs.

Another enjoyable event is going to the Galbi restaurants. This happens to be a particular favorite of one of our co-workers and as a result is the location for many group dinners. Many of these restaurants are completely open to the street so as you walk by you see dozens of people huddling around tables with a huge elephant trunk looking device hanging in the middle of them. They are huddling around a BBQ/grill type thing in the middle of the table and the elephant trunk is the ventilation system. You typical just order meat (either beef or pork) they in turn bring dozens of little dishes to fill your table. Along with the obvious - kimchi - there is a communal soup, an egg omelet type dish, at least two types of sauce, lettuce, garlic and radishes. When the meat comes you place it on the grill and cook it yourself. When it's done you take a piece of lettuce, spread some sauce on it, add a clove of garlic and a piece of meat to the lettuce, roll it up and pop the whole thing in your mouth. It's actually quite delicious. I would like to believe that the one-to-one ratio of lettuce to beef evens out the large quantity of meat consumed.

And so it begins...

Here we are in Korea. I can't believe we've been here six weeks. There are many stories to share already but I will jump right into the best to start.

Last weekend Jesse and I decided to go to the coast to celebrate our one year anniversary (one week early) before it got to cold. We were planning to spend a romantic weekend on the beach. Of course we made no plans we just jumped on the train and were going to figure it all out once we got there. Unfortunately there were not seats left on the train so we had to sit on the floor in the refreshment/arcade/karaoke (yes they have karaoke on trains) car. Shortly after we departed two foreigners (Simon and Jose) walked past to get some drinks. On their return past us they stopped to chat. turns out they were heading to the same area for a friends birthday. the birthday girl however had missed the train but her dog hadn't (another long story).
Simon and Jose soon invited us to take the birthday girl and her boyfriend's seat on the train. After chatting with them for a while they invited us to join them on a small island of the coast that boasted great secluded beaches. It didn't take much to convince us.
We spent the first night in the Picaso Love Motel, sadly the hotel room was bigger and nicer than our entire apartment. The birthday eventually showed up making the group a total of 11 people.

There were 2 Canadians, 1 Kiwi, 1 Chilean, 1 Brit, 1 Brit/Italian, 1 Moroccan, 1 Greek, us American/Canadian and 1 Australian.

The next day we caught a 7:30 ferry ride to the island. A sweet Korean man met us at the ferry terminal to take us our hotel. Our hotel was seconds away from a virtually private beach.
We spent the weekend riding waves on blow-up whales, swimming, playing soccer, eating delicious BBQ and laughing. We even got to experience a very bizarre food collecting technique. There are these incredibly phallic shell fish/muscles hidden in the sand. If you poor salt over the whole they have dug in the sand they will pop up and if your quick you grab and pull. You can boil these and they taste delicious (like oysters) although the males in the group did like the appearance and were turned off.
On the way how we experienced on of the most crowded trains I have ever been on (topped only by a Tokyo train during rush hour). People were lined up down the isles of the seating area and crammed in every corner and space in the refreshment cart. A sharp return to the reality that we are still in Korea not some exotic island country.
All in all a great weekend. Not the romantic getaway we had planned but that just gives us an excuse to try again this weekend.